‘To break stigma, you’ve go to see people as individual Case study: Michaela Jones

Michaela Jones used alcohol to help her cope with trauma from an early age.

In her 30s, her alcohol use increased and increased to the point where she almost lost everything. Now aged 54, Michaela has been abstinent for 13 years and credits the support she found from her ‘tribe’ in aiding her recovery.

Explaining why she started using alcohol, Michaela said: ‘A lot of this is reflective, but I had what would be considered a fairly traumatic childhood and I was also sexually abused for a really long time. I suppose I disassociated as a result. I was like two people all the time. The outer me was outgoing and extrovert, whereas the inner me was a scared, frightened and hurt person, and it was complex trying to juggle the two.

‘The outer me did really well. I went to university, travelled, volunteered overseas and then when I came back to the UK, I got a job and worked my way up in the organisation, eventually managing a team of around 200 people.’

During this time, Michaela’s alcohol use increased; she describes alcohol as being the only thing that brought those two different people together.

She said: ‘As the outer me was on the up, the damaged person was going down the way. Alcohol removed all those nerves and anxiety, but my use increased, and increased to a point where I was drinking to survive. I got up in the morning and was drinking, then being sick, drinking, then being sick. I was physically addicted and couldn’t function without it.

‘You can’t apply logic to addiction. I knew I had a problem, but I had no idea how to get out of it and that was a very lonely place.’

Michaela lost her job, and the structure that went with it, eventually losing her home, her car and her relationship, and then attempted suicide.

She said: ‘All the chickens came home to roost when I lost my job. I knew I couldn’t live the way I was living but I didn’t know any alternative. God knows how I got through those first few months of detoxing, I was hanging on by a thread.

‘One day I was frankly quite angry about the lack of support there was for me. I became involved in service user involvement and went to the first recovery walk and saw my tribe – and that’s when I got recovery.

‘That was the start of a journey where you realise all these people who are stigmatised and seen as negative to society are amazing people with amazing assets. The only thing they share is pain and suffering that they’ve tried deal with through using drugs and alcohol, which